This specification relates to electromagnetic communications.
Advances in semiconductor manufacturing and circuit design technologies have enabled the development and production of integrated circuits (ICs) with increasingly higher operational frequencies. In turn, electronic products and systems incorporating high frequency integrated circuits are able to provide greater functionality than previous generations of products. The additional functionality has typically included the processing of increasingly larger amounts of data at increasingly higher speeds.
Additionally, conventional electronic products and systems can communicate using a variety of high-speed protocols. Conventional connectors typically require that the particular connector and protocol be specified when a product is built. This limits the types of connections that are possible between two products. For example, if a product is designed for a universal serial bus 3.0 (USB 3.0) connection, this limits the communication of that product with others to USB 3.0 connections over a given connector. If more protocols are to be supported, additional connectors are typically added to the product.